Turbine engines, and particularly gas or combustion turbine engines, are rotary engines that extract energy from a flow of combusted gases passing through the engine in a series of compressor stages, which include pairs of rotating blades and stationary vanes, through a combustor, and then onto a multitude of turbine blades. In the compressor stages, the blades are supported by posts protruding from the rotor while the vanes are mounted to stator disks. Gas turbine engines have been used for land and nautical locomotion and power generation, but are most commonly used for aeronautical applications such as for airplanes, including helicopters. In airplanes, gas turbine engines are used for propulsion of the aircraft.
Gas turbine engines for aircraft are designed to operate at high temperatures to maximize engine thrust, so cooling of certain engine components is necessary during operation. Reducing cooling air leakage between adjacent flow path segments in gas turbine engines is desirable to maximize efficiency and lower specific fuel consumption. In adjacent compressor and turbine stages, axial and radial segment gaps create flow paths allowing leakage. Spline seals are used to decrease the leakage in these areas.